


A Cloud in My Heart

by Indiana_J



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indiana_J/pseuds/Indiana_J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One mourns, three remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cloud in My Heart

It was a three hour drive to reach the final resting place of Senator Nathan Petrelli.  To the world at large the small cemetery that his mother had picked held only locals and lovers of the Poconos Mountains and not big time, big name Senators who still happened to be seen on the evenings news.

Alive.

The name on the gravestone that marked where he could be found held a fake name for a very real man.

The crunching of tires on gravel pulled Angela Petrelli from the exhaustion that had filled the rental car - to her son ( _sons_ ) and granddaughter, she had told them she was going on a quick business trip.  Settling the foundation of the fledgling Company, making sure there would be no problems or difficulties.  No loose ends.

In her own way, Angela had not been lying to her family.

She stared out of the tinted windows of the car before caving in to a moment of weakness.  She didn't weep or curse, she simply laid her head down against the steering wheel and listened to the pings of the engine as it cooled from the long drive.  For a woman as tightly controlled as she had always had to have been, as she had been forced to become since the explosion had taken her family from her, simple resting could be the same as screaming into the night.

In the early years, in the better years, the Petrelli family had come to one of the many highly priced resort towns in the rolling mountains.  They had loved it - Angela was fairly certain that Arthur hadn't distorted any of those memories, those feelings.  But more importantly, a wide-eyed Nathan had fallen in love with the majestic surroundings.  His laughter had echoed through the rocks and crevasses as he convinced his nervous younger brother to play hide and seek among the trees.

It was fitting that he should be buried among his first love.

The family plot held no good memories - just an empty casket and a headstone for Arthur.  But it wasn't like she had wasted time burying his body there when it actually, finally, had the decency to die.

And besides.  To the world at large, there was no reason for the Petrelli family plot to be used.  Not this time and not for a long time, not if Angela had her way.

Angela shuddered once, blinked red but dry eyes and finally eased out of the car.  The day was cool with just a hint of clouds in the sky, a stark reminder that she was the only one mourning as 'Nathan' recovered in New York.  After the funeral pyre for Sylar, the others had scattered and only then had she been able to get away, to come say her goodbyes.

She paused as she climbed the hill, her high heels digging divots into the dirt and grass.  Two figures stood waiting for her at Nathan's grave and Angela felt her throat seize with sudden emotion for a moment.  One tall and heavy-set, hunched shoulders; the other standing with the calm readiness of a soldier.

Neither of them had told her they were coming - she was at once annoyed and yet held up by their presence, with the knowledge that she was not alone in this venture.

After a moment, she joined Matt Parkman and Noah Bennet, nodding to them both in turn.  Her friendship, relationship, with Noah was complicated, sharp and potentially deadly - like him.  Matt Parkman, however, was newer, less molded and less defined.  For once in Angela Bennet's life, she didn't care.  In his own way he had given her Nathan back and that was all that mattered.

"Montgomery Simons?" Matt asked, hunching against the sharp wind, nodding at the name carved into the stone.

"His sons," Bennet filled in from the other side of Angela.

Obvious and yet, not.  Very much like Nathan had been in life.

They stood there for a moment, under a pale sky and on top of a world that kept moving in spite of, or because of, the tragedies that happened upon it.  Parkman fidgeted, Bennet calmly watched, and Angela simply was.

"Should we ... say something?"

Angela turned toward the former police officer.  "You can, if you wish," she said simply, mildly.

Their eyes met and she knew for all that he had been inside her mind, had pulled her out of the darkness that her husband had chained her with, Matthew Parkman did not understand her.  But since no one really did, not since her sister, she placed no blame on his shoulders for that failing.

He rubbed the back of his head and stared at his feet before saying quietly, "He was a good partner.  I was a cop, I know how valuable those are.  Whatever happened those months ago didn't change that.  Not for me, not for his family.  He tried to make up for what he had done by doing the right thing because even in the end, there was always time to do what was right."

Embarrassed, he coughed into his hand before stepping up and placing it firmly against the cool marble headstone.  Matt straightened after a moment and turned to shake Noah's hand and then Angela's, pressing it gently between his own before he left.

Bennet's gaze switched from Parkman's retreating back to Angela's face.  "Do you want _me_ to say something?" he asked and it was hard to tell if he was using his words to be sincere or to cut.

"I've known you long enough, Noah, to know that you'll say your piece whether or not I want to hear it," Angela responded primly as she folded her hands in front of her.

He smiled and when he spoke, he didn't look down at the grave but kept his knowing gaze on her.  "He loved Claire.  And I suppose, in the end, that goes a long way in my book."  Noah's hand fell on her shoulder, squeezed, and then he too was gone.

Now it was just her and Nathan.

"Oh, Nathan," Angela sighed, kneeling on the freshly turned dirt.  Unlike the other two, she didn't speak at first.  Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his headstone as if it were his forehead.  Only when she stood again, with dirt on her knees and lipstick smudged, did she speak.  "Time and time again, I did wrong by you, my boy.  I don't regret a lot of the things I did in my life but the one thi -"  A spasm of pain crossed her features. "The one thing I do regret is not being able to save you.  Or even tell you goodbye.  Even when your footing faltered, or when the path you were on strayed, you were still my son.  I was proud of you, Nathan, and I loved you."

She pressed her hand against the carved words.

"The world moves on, Nathan, and I have to move with it.  I know - hope - you'd understand.""

But Nathan Petrelli would not be forgotten.

Even four hours later, when his mother wrapped her arms around a Nathan Petrelli that heard the ticking of clocks in his dreams; even when Matt Parkman shook a Nathan Petrelli's hand and met his eyes after a softly spoken guarantee of safety came through; even when a sharp eyed and knowing Noah Bennet watched his daughter hug a Nathan Petrelli before they headed home.

One mourned, three remembered. 


End file.
